The King's Choice

April 1940: Germany invades Norway and the government falls apart. The German envoy asks to meet the king and proposes surrender and cooperation, and King Haakon VII, who has almost no constitutional authority, is the one who has to answer. Erik Poppe compresses it into three days and builds the conflict in waiting rooms rather than in battle. His most interesting decision is to let the German envoy be a person too, a man who believes he is preventing a massacre. Jesper Christensen plays the king old, hesitant and tired rather than monumental. The brief fighting in the snow supplies the tensest passages. Who it is for: viewers interested in less familiar fronts of the Second World War and in films about a single decision. Who it is not for: anyone expecting large scale combat, since most of this happens in one room.